I was thinking about Olajuwon as well. Also, Gasol had help from Bynum. Maybe not as much, but I would still qualify it as a quality big.

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It makes Jordan's dominance all the more impressive.

One other thing that I noticed is that the NBA Finals rarely go to game 7's. The Pistons were the only team to lose a game 7 in the NBA Finals in the last 10 years. It has only haven't twice in the last 20 years.

So, when we moan that we were very close to going back-to-back, we are telling the truth.

The entire financial system, worldwide, top to bottom is broken, and has been broken for about 100 years.

We have a debt money system, which means that everyone buys now and hopes to hell they can pay tomorrow. The incentive to live within our means is dis-incentivized by our monetary system. And it is mirrored in all of our business models, top to bottom.

A more sensible system would favour producing and then spending what you can afford.

Hear ya DBA. But one could argue utilizing the last years revenue to re-set the next years spending is very shortsighted in todays economy. It's really like playing "catch-up" all the time.

....

As an aside, I think the owners are thieves. I have no problem with the players getting a healthy revenue split and I'm not for seeing the players end up in a more submissive financial position. I just think the whole game, the big picture, needs a re-thinking, a re-engineering.

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I think there are two separate issues in play. First is the cap system itself.

I agree that the CBA was never conceived with the notion that growth might stop or even reverse one day. It's hard to think of any good examples of long term contracts, agreements, or programs that allow for the economy to stop growing (don't even get me started on pension plans). If the cap shrinks and teams go into luxury land while just paying out what they paid out last year you may see some quick adjustments to the plan though.

Still, while the idea that the cap changes next year based on last year may not be ideal, I'd argue it at least provides a solid baseline for thinking about costs. It's not perfect, but I think there are a lot worse alternatives. Maybe the cap ought to be a hard one without the option of paying the luxury tax.

Something I've proposed before is not to pay salaries designated in dollars, but in terms of a share of the cap. Player x gets 5% of the cap, etc. If the league expands and the cap goes up your salary goes up, if it doesn't, then your salary might fall.

Second issue though is how it gets split up. The players get what, 50%? 60%? I don't know enough about where the risks lie in the business and what the accounting looks like to have a POV about whether that's a good number or not. (But I would say that a player salary cap, e.g., no one gets paid more than x might be an interesting idea.)

Some of the numbers...
Average NBA salary - $4.621 million
Average excluding those above $15mm - $3.967 million

Top 5% of players make 20% of the salary dollars
Bottom 40% of players play 20% of the salary dollars

Bottom 25% of players make less than $1mm

(Sorry for the rushed answer - hope I didn't misrepresent what you said anywhere.)

"Ah yes...more of the built-in hatred for NBA Players because they don't "deserve" that kind of money..." Low

Little over the top and completely off target.

My post questioning the long term capacity of the market to deliver quality product isn't hater'ism, it's economics. The market doesn't exist in a vacuum and already many arenas are feeling the hurt from $25 seats. Wait and see, the cap is going to be reduced annually for many years because of the current economic contraction.

The arenas that have been built with the sole intent of clearing large percentages of their gross from high dollar corporate accounts (suites) are going to be in serious trouble. They've built infrastructure that isn't flexible due to cost. They can't reasonably modify the way they serve their customer base. Stern has been caught napping at the wheel.
The next big bank crisis is looming right now, it's consumer credit card debt.

I have a partner that owns 2 private golf courses in Chicago. His strategy for many years has been to charge a club fee of $250 annually and typical rounds fees. Both courses have 2500 active members which is as many as they can reasonably schedule. Over the years many guys left to join more upscale clubs.

In the last 18 months his waiting list for new members has exploded to 4000, beyond that they won't take new names (otherwise he thinks the list would have 10,000 names). Normally (over the last 20 years) his normal waiting list held 350-500 names. All those new names are golfers looking to lower their costs. Many were one time members who had gone off to greener pastures. Point is disposable income is rapidly diminishing and the NBA, NHL, NFL and MLB aren't insulated.

Assume they don't pro-actively modify their planning strategy in the North American market place and the available revenue shrinks dynamically. Players will migrate to markets that best can pay them and those will be markets where products are produced and there's lots of fliud monies in a growing middle class. Can you say China? They just bought 15% of the Cleveland Cavaliers last month!

Sterns burying his head in the sand won't keep the NBA from getting it's backside kicked. My post has nothing to do with hater'ism, quite the opposite, I love the game but it's costs need to be scaled back for it remain economically viable. Reducing salaries, reducing revenue and passing it on as cost savings to keep cheeks in the seats is about maintaining viability.

Thats a pretty hefty increase over 24 years. It didn't improve the quality of play in the game. The owners got it, the players got it, the NBA got it and we paid for it. Now we're subsidizing the other international markets with the profits from those $25 seats. Preparing them for expansion.

These are ridiculously high wages that can't be supported in a shrinking economy or by any real sense of logic.

You know how it works logically?

If a couple dozen guys got together and decided they wanted to monopolize the future of a sport (in collusion). This is a pretty good model to follow. Over compensate the players, (money is an addiction and a distraction), the high wages bar other competitive entities from entering the field. Keep the salaries up and no one else can afford a franchise. No one else can start a league (hello Zeke).

Force communities to ante up to keep them leveraged. Pit communities against one another by limiting the total franchises allowed and forcing them to spend tax monies on arenas. This uses the populace in those communities as additional leverage.

You want in - you have to sell your soul, look what Robert Johnson (Charlotte Bobcat owner) was forced to pay by the other owners $300 Million dollars, (they split it up among themselves).
That was before he had to build a new arena and staff up.
Guess who's looking to offload a money losing franchise today?

Know what the last expansion owners paid to get their franchises back in 1989-1990?

Orlando Magic $32.5M

Minnesota Timberwolves $32.5M

Vancouver Grizzlies $125M

Toronto Raptors $125M

In 1979 the Dallas Mavericks expansion franchise was purchased for $12M. That was only 3 decades ago. Robert Johnson had to pay 25X that amount!

So you can't make an argument that players are somehow being hated on if the whole process was built to limit franchise growth and limit player movement from it's on-set. If the first black owner gets charged 10 times what the Magic and Wolves went for and 2.5X what the Grizz and Raptors went for and 25X what the Mavericks went for - that's progress? No that's collusion.

The last year of Forbes franchise earnings I found was 2007 (reported in 2008). The average team value was $207M and the average revenue was $79.9M! (Detroit was at $236M in value and revenue was $90.6M)

And they want you to think cause they're paying ridiculous wages
it's a sign of progress, but it's a sham, a mirage. There's no competition, no free market and they even own the damn development league. It's a monopoly and it's hidden under piles of money in plain sight.

But that house is a house of cards cause the escalating cost structure built to insulate them is also their curse when the market demand shrinks. As long as they maintain some level of influence over the individual market depreciation, they can get by (move or sell a team).

But if you get long-term wholesale market contraction? Those same salaries and poorly designed infrastructures will hang around their ankles like balls & chains. Then they'll start selling off pieces to the Chinese to raise revenue (see Cleveland). Then they'll require the players to start playing in their markets, they'll sell their contracts to other corporate owned teams in other countries (see Soccer).

The point is we've given up the steel manufacturing trade, the textile manufacturing trade, the small farm trade, the furniture manufacturing trade, the aero manufacturing trade, the auto manufacturing trade, etc.

They even took Budweiser man. Don't you get it.

We allowed each of them to wither away and die for the benfit of select corporate interests over North American interests. We've allowed ourselves to become a nation of service providers and health care workers. We didn't pay enough attention to who was driving the bus and where they were taking us.

I'd like to think we still have it in us to make a stand somewhere based on intelligent long-term planning that's in our collective best interests. That we aren't mesmerized like a flock of crows staring at a shiny object.

Professional sports, for the most part we still own. I say we stand on the rock, we sit on the biscuit. This rubber ain't hittin the road..

(okay i got a little carried away)

I also like DBA's idea of shares that grow and shrink.
I know about things that shrink..

The point is we've given up the steel manufacturing trade, the textile manufacturing trade, the small farm trade, the furniture manufacturing trade, the aero manufacturing trade, the auto manufacturing trade, etc.

It's not too late to see the whole NBA train wreck getting ready to happen. It' not too late to use deductive reasoning to better understand where the future pitfalls are and ways they may be avoided.

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Without a doubt. But my point remains, that it's like looking at creaky knees, and never considering that the problem could be pervasive chronic arthritis.

Changing the driver, only works if we know the bus is sound, if the route is efficient, and the demand exists. Likewise, fixing the problems the NBA faces, are not dissimilar from the problems MLB, NFL and NHL face as well. They all have CBAs and they may all have declining revenues.

If you don't think and talk about the future you have no control over your place in it. Everything isn't a foregone conclusion Roscoe.

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I agree that conclusions are not foregone, but that before you can plan your future, you have to understand your past and your present. We want to believe we can make anything out of tomorrow, but everyone who is successful knows that progress comes from a foundation laid and maintained over time. The lottery/casino mentality of short term change, short term incentives are (in my opinion) why we're in the state we're in. It's time to push out to the horizon in 3 dimensions and get a full spectrum appreciation for the world we live in and the challenges we face.

I'm a realist not a cynic, (don't let the goggles fool you).
But you my friend, I worry about you...

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I get out of bed each day, because I believe today can be better than yesterday. As a realist, I know that it will only happen if I make it so. As a cynic, I know that the odds are against me. As a dreamer, I ignore the facts on the ground and give it my best shot anyway.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the SheedJeff Clark - Celtics Blog

"So the long and short of it is that I was a skeptic before and now I'm a believer. Of course seeing Rasheed buy in to us makes it a lot easier to buy into him. So I'm on board all the way. And if it doesn't work out well, ...hey, I can still say "I told you so."

What is the luxury tax?
The luxury tax is a mechanism whose first goal is to reduce the differences between the richest and the poorest franchises.
In Early July, the league calculates a threshold based on an evaluation of its revenue for the next season.

At the end of the season, teams whose payroll is higher than the luxury tax threshold pay a dollar for each dollar above the threshold. The money given by all the taxpayers is then divided.

Each team bellow the tax gets 1/30th of this money and the rest is either equally divided between all the franchises or used to help franchise(s) with serious financial troubles.

The double penalty system:
A team above the tax is two time penalized. First, they had to pay the $ for $ tax. Second, they don't get 1/30th of the luxury tax money given by NBA teams.

This system has two consequences:

- The $ for $ tax pushes teams with payroll significantly higher than the luxury tax threshold to lower their payroll.

- The redistribution system pushes teams that are just above the tax to go just under. What is problematic for a team $100K above the tax isn't the additional $100K to pay in tax but the $3M you don't get during the redistribution.

You know who else is white? Larry Bird, the Pacers president and the whitest white boy of all time. In a league that is almost 90% non-white guys, Bird has assembled a roster that is 50% see-through and just drafted the whitest of white hopes, Tyler Hansborough. So what gives? Does Bird secretly have a thing for his pale brothers?

I think it is much to do about nothing. I read the article in the Indianapolis Star by Bob Kravitz. I think Bird wants the best players....he just doesnt draft very well. The overall tone of the article was that Bird does not take race in consideration when choosing players. He probably doesnt want knuckleheads like Tinsely, Artest and Jackson. Dont underestimate the psychological effect on Indianapolis after the Malice. Every sterotype of black males was exhibited in just 5 minutes. It probably scared their season ticket holders and it ruined their season.

I think it is much to do about nothing. I read the article in the Indianapolis Star by Bob Kravitz. I think Bird wants the best players....he just doesnt draft very well. The overall tone of the article was that Bird does not take race in consideration when choosing players. He probably doesnt want knuckleheads like Tinsely, Artest and Jackson. Dont underestimate the psychological effect on Indianapolis after the Malice. Every sterotype of black males was exhibited in just 5 minutes. It probably scared their season ticket holders and it ruined their season.

Bird has been around and played with blacks forever, he doesnt care.

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NYP, this was the big topic on both ARTH And PTI today. But the funniest thing about the online article were fans/reader comments including this one;